Legal Systems and Concepts
For a partial list of common law and civil law countries, see Legal systems of the world on Wikipedia The legal realist view influenced the emergence of the School of Thought of Critical Legal Studies (CLS). The «crits» believe that the social order (and the law) is dominated by those who have power, wealth and influence. Some criticisms are clearly influenced by the economist Karl Marx and also by the theory of distributive justice (see Chapter 2 «Corporate Social Responsibility and Business Ethics»). The CLS school believes that in the past, the rich oppressed or exploited those with less wealth and maintained social control through laws. In this way, the rich maintained an unfair distribution of rights and property in society. Law is political and therefore not neutral or worthless. The CLS movement would use the law to overturn hierarchical power structures in modern society. At the local level, counties and municipal corporations or municipalities may be empowered under a state constitution to issue or issue ordinances. Examples of ordinances include local building codes, zoning laws and misdemeanors, or violations such as skateboarding or jaywalking. Many of the most unusual laws that make headlines from time to time are local ordinances. For example, in Logan County, Colorado, it is illegal to kiss a sleeping woman; In Indianapolis, Indiana, and Eureka, Nebraska, it`s a crime to kiss if you have a mustache. But according to reports, some states still have strange laws here and there. Kentucky law states that every person in the state must take a bath at least once a year, and it is illegal not to do so.
Law is a word that means different things at different times. Black`s Law Dictionary says that law is «a set of rules of action or conduct prescribed by the supervisory authority and having binding legal force. What is followed and must be followed by citizens subject to sanctions or legal consequences is a law. Black`s Law Dictionary, 6th edition, s.v. «Law». Learn about the landmark 1896 Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson. In that case, the Supreme Court said legal laws were «separate but equal» requiring black and white citizens to use separate facilities.
The decision ushered in a «Jim Crow» era in the southern United States. This was only the second time the Supreme Court had ruled on a sexual harassment case. Many feminist jurists feared that the court would raise the bar and make it harder to win hostile working conditions cases under Title VII. That did not happen. If the issue to be decided is combined with the court`s decision, we get the decision of the case. In the present case, the question referred by the Court and its answer lead to the conclusion that `a worker does not have to prove serious psychological harm in order to succeed in a case of sexual harassment in Title VII`. That finding is valid until the Court of First Instance takes up a similar question and answers it differently. It happens, but it rarely happens. The main alternative to the common law legal system was developed in Europe and is based on Roman and Napoleonic law.
A civil law or code system is a system in which all legal provisions are contained in one or more complete legal acts. During Napoleon`s reign, a comprehensive code of law – a code – was developed for the entire France. The Code included criminal law, criminal procedure law, non-criminal and non-criminal law, as well as commercial law. The rules of the Code are still applied today in France and other legal systems in continental Europe. The Code is used to resolve some cases, usually by judges without a jury. In addition, judges are not required to follow the decisions of other courts in similar cases. As George Cameron of the University of Michigan noted, «the law is in the code, not in the cases.» He continues: «If several cases have interpreted a provision in a particular way, French courts may feel obliged to reach the same conclusion in future cases according to the doctrine of settled case-law. However, the most important body for growth and change is the legislature, not the courts. There are different ideas about what is right and what should be right. Laws and legal systems differ around the world. The legal system in the United States is based on the U.S. Constitution, which itself is inspired by natural law theory and the idea that people have rights that cannot be taken away by the government, but can only be protected by the government.
The various functions of the law are done well or badly, depending on the nation-state you are looking at. Some are very good at maintaining order, while others are better at allowing civil and political liberties.
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